


and they were roommates

by dodecahedrons



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Earth C (Homestuck), M/M, Vines, post-comic but pre-epilogues
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-01
Updated: 2019-07-13
Packaged: 2020-05-31 14:13:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19427602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dodecahedrons/pseuds/dodecahedrons
Summary: The Gods are expected to entertain the commoners, but a certain God finds that his way of entertaining is putting a damper on his relationship. The only rational conclusion to this conundrum is, of course, to go back in time to steal the information required to re-create a defunct social media platform.





	1. Chapter 1

The sound of the rain was nearly indistinguishable from the sound of the shower. Usually you’d think they’d sound different, right? The shower is more concentrated, and the rain is more everywhere. For the Strider-Vantas household, however, this wasn’t the case. The water falling from both the overcast sky and the cheap showerhead apparently sounded damn near identical. Perhaps it was just what Dave could hear from his position on the sofa. In fact, that was likely to be the actual case. But if you asked him, he’d insist it was the same to everyones ears. Karkat would, then, vehemently disagree. Of course, this would end in a dramatically executed faux-argument that the duo had been through multiple times, especially when around the commonfolk of Earth C. These theatrics entertained the commonfolk more than most things.

Yep, life on Earth C had gotten so goddamn ritualistic and mundane that the only way it’s non-empyrean inhabitants could feel any sort of happiness was through obviously fake arguments among the Gods. Whether it be public displays of aggression, stupidly over-done television shows, or anything vaguely resembling tabloid culture from the Earth all of the beta and alpha kids once knew, the devout followers of the Gods of Earth C would eat it right up. 

Basically, everything was so mind-numbingly dull that billions of creatures would find endless amusement from Dave insisting that the acoustics of the bathroom definitely lined up with the acoustics of every inch of the roof of his and Karkat’s apartment complex, and that this definitely meant that the rate and volume at which water fell in their respective environments would sound exactly the same to everyone who listened. Was it a tired gag? Absolutely. But it got attention, it garnered more followers, and it kept the two relevant.

Fighting for relevancy wasn’t something Dave originally thought would be a part of Godhood. Cool powers seemed par for the course, and making an entire goddamn universe was, in his words, “pretty lit”, but competing with his fellow Gods and Goddesses wasn’t something he’d bargained for. Dirk and Jake were, by far, the most popular of the God Squad. You couldn’t go anywhere, in any region of Earth C, without seeing their faces everywhere. Jake was more or less a pornstar at this point, and Dirk was both Jake’s director and the director of minor artistic films of his own.

To put it bluntly, if they weren’t Gods, they’d still be famous as hell.

Karkat was fine remaining in the shadow of Dirk and Jake. He wasn’t ready to be a public figure, even when Earth C was a distant thought in the back of everyones minds way at the start of the Game. Being a leader had already monumentally exploded in his face, and being in the public eye was essentially becoming the leader of those whos lives are ruled by pop culture. However, he’d unfortunately found himself flushed for an attention whore, so attention was unavoidable. He could only thank his lucky stars he wasn’t a God. There was only so much pressure he could handle, and he was sure there wasn’t anger management on Earth C yet, so he much rathered his position of lesser power at the side of his boyfriend to being the omnipotent ruler of billions of idiots.

Dave adjusted on the sofa, staring up at the off-white ceiling of the living room, listening to the merging sounds of water falling from above him and behind him. Even if they meshed in his own mind, he could still tell from which direction the shower was. He claimed it was his ear for music helping him, but Karkat (as part of their previously mentioned public argument shtick) would just claim it was his shit attempt at keeping his story straight. “He doesn’t have an ear for music. He listens to Fergilicious in the shower every goddamn day,” Karkat was on the record saying at one point. The people of Earth C ate up this gossip despite not knowing who Fergie was or what Fergilicious even sounded like. 

When the sound from behind him changed from the droning white noise of water falling to a sharp, quick squeak followed by silence, he knew his world was about to get twice as loud. The heavy wooden door creaked open, and a moment of silence followed before damp footsteps tread across the linoleum tile of the bathroom and onto the hardwood floors of the apartment’s hallways.

“Can’t you dry off before wandering the house in the nude?” Dave shouted, not moving from his rather comfortable position on the sofa.

“Can’t you mind your business for five seconds?” Karkat shouted back. “Also, I’m decent enough to wear a towel after I get out of the Ablution trap.”

“Shower,” Dave quickly responded. Karkat huffed.

“If I have to deal with your shitty human words, you have to deal with my troll words.”

“How come you get to call my words shitty, but I can’t call your words shitty?” Dave inquired in a faux-whine, pouting dramatically as he turned to face Karkat. In response, Karkat stuck his tongue out and rolled his eyes, walking toward the couch and sighing. “What, I don’t get an answer?”

“Stupid questions don’t deserve answers,” the troll responded simply. He stared down at the sofa, which Dave was unceremoniously sprawled across. “Make room.”

“Not until you answer my question,” the blond teased. 

“Fine,” Karkat hummed. He proceeded to unceremoniously drop directly onto Dave’s legs, adding a nice little ‘I’m getting comfortable’ wiggle into the mix for good measure. Dave yelped, trying to pry his legs from underneath Karkat.

“Your ass is soaked!” 

“Sure is. I wonder how this could’ve been avoided.”

“Quit being a hardass and get off my legs.”

“Oh no. I’m losing control of my entire fucking body.”

“You better not-”

Karkat flopped over to cover Dave’s upper body with his own, sharing the wetness from his shower with his boyfriend. “Oh no. I can’t move. I think my body broke.”

“Karkat I swear on everything that’s important to me I will shove you off of this sofa.”

“Aren’t I important to you? Is my safety not your priori-”

Before Karkat could get his stupidly dramatized speech out, Dave had used what strength he could muster to push him to the floor. He landed with a wet thud, his towel deciding to fuck off and go soak the floor some more rather than cover Karkat’s indecency. Dave chuckled a bit, sitting up and poking the troll’s back with his socked foot. “You good?”

“Eat shit,” Karkat muttered into the area rug, making an attempt to stand. Dave put his other foot on Karkat’s head, firm enough to make moving annoying but not enough to inflict actual discomfort. He was only trying to fuck around, after all. 

“I’m allergic, sorry,” Dave responded, not missing a beat. He tossled Karkat’s wet hair with his foot, earning what could only be called a furry’s attempt at growling from the troll. You’d think trolls would be able to growl, but nope. Some of them can purr, sure, but growling seems to be something their genetic code decided to nix. 

“Dave get your fucking foot off of me,” Karkat shouted. It wasn’t an angry shout, rather one of desperation. The slight intonation needed to determine this was something very few people could pick up. You had to be incredibly close to the hothead to know his tonal language. Despite the desperate plea for mercy uttered by the troll, Dave repudiated.

“I always thought we needed a footrest,” he simply commented, smushing his foot around in Karkat’s hair for added measure. To show he wasn’t being entirely rude, he traced a shitty heart into Karkat’s back with the foot not on his head. “You make an awfully comfy one.”

“When I get off the floor, you’re dead.”

“Oh no, I’m  _ so  _ scared.”

“I know where you sleep, fucker.”

“If you didn’t, I’d be taking you to get your fucking eyes checked. You sleep one foot from me.”

“Cut the shit and let me up. It’s cold in here.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t have came in here butt ass naked.”

“I  _ wasn’t _ until you shoved me off the couch, you absolute shitbrick.”

“Woah woah woah,” Dave said in an over-the-top offended manner. He took his feet off of the defeated troll. He hopped off the side of the couch and lied face-down on the floor across from Karkat, turning his head so his cheek was flush with the hardwood. Karkat, on the other hand, still had his forehead firmly pressed in the throw rug. “Look at me.”

“No.”

“I’m begging you. If you don’t I dont know what I’ll do.”

“Fuck off, David.”

“Hey now.”

“I’m fucking serious.”

Dave sighed. “Fine. I’ll be in the bedroom when you’re done having a naked tantrum.” The blond army-crawled toward Karkat, placing a gentle kiss atop his head before rising to his feet and heading down the damp hallway toward their shared bedroom. 

Karkat remained on the floor for a moment, until the AC kicked on and sent a freezing draft across his bare ass. He quickly jumped up and reclaimed his now cold towel from the clutches of the floor, wrapping it around himself before idly standing in the middle of the living room.

“Fuck.”

He had to go into the bedroom to get his clothes, but at this point was it even worth it? If he went in, Dave would win. He’d have to see his shit eating grin as he crossed the threshold, and he’d have to deal with the shame of hearing Dave snicker as he quickly threw clothes on to hide the fact the AC was causing him to shiver.

If he stayed in the living room, however, he would have peace. Quiet. Serenity. He could be free of the jeering, the teasing, seeing those stupid red eyes smile at him despite the otherwise neutral look on his shit-eating face. He’d be free of the gentle, affectionate apologies Dave always offered even when their arguments ended in silence. He’d be… free… of those warm, toned arms holding him close… warming him up… making him not be so angry and shivery and lonely…

Before he knew it, he was walking down the hallway at an all too quick pace, wet feet slapping against semi-dried footprints of trails previously tread. When he walked into the bedroom, however, he didn’t see Dave. The bed was still in it’s weird, vaguely-messy state from earlier that morning. The closet was ajar and contained no humanoid figures in it, and the door was damn near flush with the wall. The bedroom was small, quiet, and entirely devoid of any signs of Dave.

“Where the fuck are you?” Karkat inquired at a vaguely-shouty level of volume. He re-scanned the room for any Dave-shaped figures before turning on his heel to go back to the living room. When he turned, however, he noticed the bathroom door wasn’t as wide open as he’d left it. 

The bathroom was across the hall from the bedroom, as you’d expect it to be. Maybe on the way to the bedroom, Dave decided to take a leak or something. Quietly, Karkat stalked toward the bathroom and peaked through the chasm between the doorframe and door itself. He could see Dave staring at himself in the mirror, a kind of melancholic look in his eyes.

_ Is this my fault? _ Karkat could only help but wonder. He tried to compose himself as if he hadn’t seen Dave staring at the mirror like it was a dead puppy. He tried to hone the energy of their earlier argument before unceremoniously throwing the door open. This wasn’t well calculated, however, because the door slammed right into Dave’s arm, causing him to not only notice that Karkat had barged in on him in the bathroom, but that Karkat had obviously been in the bedroom and still hadn’t put fucking clothes on.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Karkat asked, a vague worried tone on his voice as he looked down at Dave. 

“Having a naked alien assault me with the bathroom door,” Dave mumbled, stumbling to his feet as he tried to hide the fact that a door had just, in fact, slammed into his arm. 

“I wouldn’t be naked if you weren’t staring at yourself like a dead fucking barkbeast.” 

Dave opened his mouth to comment on the troll terminology, but quickly decided against it. Instead, he brought up a topic from his earlier musings. 

“Karkat, I’m tired of arguing,” he said simply. He was looking at Karkat… kind of. More like staring directy over Karkat’s shoulder at nothing in particular, but it was close enough.

“It’s inevitable when you’re dating a fucking hardhead,” Karkat tried to offer vague comfort. He wasn’t sure if he was referring to himself or Dave in the context of being a hardhead, but he was sure the ambiguity would bring some sort of comfort. 

“Well obviously. Have you met yourself?” Dave teased, sighing after. “I meant… Look, I love getting attention as much as the next social media starved Millenial, but, our arguments aren’t even  _ fun  _ anymore. They’re predictable. Remember the arguments we had way back? Remember penis ouija?”

“How the hell could I forget that bullshit,” the troll responded quickly, rolling his eyes. “What, do you want to draw more dicks? Is that what you want?”

“No. Well, yes, but also no. I just wish we could entertain everyone in a different way.”

“We could just drop off the face of publicity. I vote we move into a fucking cave.”

“No. I want to remain relevant but…”

“But what? I’m not in the mood for cryptic Strider antics.”

“Okay... Do you know what Vine was?”


	2. Chapter 2

“Wait wait wait, you’re telling me humans would put ungodly amounts of effort into six second videos _for fun_ ? That’s what your species did for _fun?”_ Karkat mumbled incredulously. By this point, he’d thrown on some boxers and pants. He’d only obliged after Dave locked him out of the bedroom and refused to explain anything to him or let him in until he promised to get dressed. He did so begrudgingly, but now that he was curled into Dave’s side and listening to tales of planets past, he didn’t mind so much.

What he did mind was the sheer stupidity of this app Dave was talking about.

“It was fucking hilarious, dude. Some of them were super fucking simple, but then other ones had actual editing, y’know? It’s like YouTube, but with a time limit. Some of the Vines actually became long running memes, apparently,” Dave hummed. “I never personally interacted with the app, seeing as it was founded three years after my planet was destroyed, but alternate Daves had some experience with it.”

“So you know about Vine just because other versions of you used it?” Karkat deadpanned, pulling away from Dave’s warmth to stare at him with an unamused gaze. Dave nodded.

“Most of my friends had alternate selves who used Vine. Rose has some of the most vivid recollection of it seeing as her alternate selves’ memories like to pop into her head at random.”

“So. You’re proposing we make this shitty _‘meme’_ app ourselves?”

“Hell no. What do I look like, an app developer?” Dave laughed. He picked his phone up from its resting spot on his chest and unlocked it, opening a notepad with shittily drawn sketches on it. He proceeded to look at Karkat wordlessly, as if these sketches were the answer to all his questions.

Karkat was not exactly amused.

“Your chicken scratch is communicating nothing to me. I feel like I’m staring at someones wrecked sphincter, not a fucking explanation.”

“Babe come on, it’s my gameplan,” Dave prodded, a smirk adorning his usually stoic features. Karkat shook his head, firm on his statement.

“Through all the sweeps I’ve known you - the damn near five grueling, painful sweeps we’ve been acquainted - I’ve seen a lot. I’ve seen you do some of the most ass-backwards shit. That penis ouija stunt was only scratching the surface of Strider headassery. But through all of those fucking shenanigans, never have I expected you to go on an hour long spiel about a phone app you never personally used, and then when I pose the very _realistic_ idea of you simply remaking the app, you shove your ass in my face and shit out this pile of colored scribbles. Never. In a million fucking sweeps. Would I have expected this.”

“And never in the past five sweeps have you explained what a ‘sweep’ is in its entirety, yet I still choose to sleep with you,” Dave hummed, intentionally missing the whole point of Karkat’s monologue. Rather than get irate at the blatant Strider-brand ignorance, however, the alien’s face lit up a bright hue of red. 

“You can’t just say shit like- You-” Karkat was stumbling over his words like a horse with several broken legs trying to jump hurdles. His brain wasn’t wanting to connect any coherent thought well enough to let it escape his mouth.

All in all, flustering Karkat seemed to be a success.

“Can’t what?” Dave teased, his slight smirk growing into a bigger, knowing grin. Karkat punched him in the shoulder and immediately turned to face the wall opposite Dave.

“You know exactly what you did,” Karkat huffed, ears twitching as they took on a redder hue.

For the years they’d been more or less dating, Dave always knew Karkat would easily fluster or shut down at the vaguest mention of intimacy directed toward him. The sheer thought of someone loving him was so foreign to Karkat that the overbearing nature of human affection often left him suffocating. Dave usually kept his small intimacies as innocuous as possible to avoid totally destroying his boyfriend in public spaces, but in private it was a different story. Flustering Karkat was so fucking fun, and his reactions when flustered were downright adorable - though the stoic blond would never admit this out loud to anyone, not even the recipient of his affection. 

“Said we sleep together?” Dave inquired, trying to hide a coy chuckle. Karkat reached behind him and tried to slap at Dave, but didn’t even come close. Instead, Dave reached out and held his hand.

“Motherfuck- Can you just explain this shitty diagram to me, please?” Karkat pleaded, hand twitching like he was gonna pull it away but fingers intertwining with Dave’s regardless. 

“If you come back here. As sexy as your back is, I don’t really like talking to it.”

“I swear on everything I care about, if you say anything else not directly relating to the diagram, I am going to go fucking apeshit.”

Dave proceeded to tighten his grip on Karkat’s hand ever so slightly, using this minimal contact to gently tug him back toward him. The troll let himself fall backwards, still refusing to look directly at the blond. “Karkat,” Dave hummed, hovering his phone over the man’s face. “Get your ass over here or you’ll never know the secrets of the scribbles.”

Reluctantly, Karkat obliged, rolling his way back over to Dave and gluing himself to his side once more. He let his cheek rest on Dave’s shoulder, looking up at the screen now held in comfortable view of the both of them. Slim fingers navigated through a rather over-crowded notepad phone application filled with stupid scribbles and jokes reminiscent of Dave’s iconic _Sweet Bro And Hella Jeff_ comics before stopping on and opening a document filled with the same diagram from before, but with actual words underneath.

“Okay. So, hear me out,” Dave began, tapping on the diagram and rotating his phone so it was more visible.

He pointed at the red circle in the top left corner, zooming in on it to emphasize that that was the starting point of this whole diagram. “That’s us.”

“Wow, it’s so damn obvious,” Karkat quipped.

“Fuck off, I used our old chat colors. How much clearer could it get? Anyway, we’re here on Earth-C, but Vine _isn’t_ here. That’s an issue.”

“No shit. In this scenario you’re proposing, that’s like a fucking crisis situation.”

“Shhh. We need to make the app, but I have no fucking idea how to do that. Me and my bros would try our hands at coding when we were thirteen but like, coding shitty pop-up porn ads as pranks on your friends can only teach you so much. John is the metaphorical packing tape for this predicament, because he’s the only one out of the four of us to actually give a shit post-game about his old hobbies.”

“So, _John_ is going to make the app?” Karkat surmised. 

“Yes and no.”

“Right, because a simple yes _or_ no would be too fucking simplistic for a Strider battleplan.”

“Exactly. So, not only does John have the leet haxor skillz we need for this to work,” Dave continued, waving his free hand mockingly with the use of his late 2000s Earth slang, “But he also has retcon powers. So-”

“Hold on a fucking minute.”

“Karkat if you keep interrupting we’re never going to get to phase two of the plan.”

“No. Hold on. Why the fuck do we need John’s retcon powers to make a shitty phone app?”

“I’m _trying_ to explain, but _someone_ won’t let me finish.”

“Fine. My bad for trying to understand a madman’s ramblings.”

“So we need John, because he can retcon us back to when Vine was being released. We’ll all need to go to Rose first, because like I said, she has memories of this shit. We might even need to bring her along, but I don’t know for sure so I didn’t pen her in.”

“Fucking incredible.”

“I know, right? So, we’re going to go back to 2012 in a timeline where the world didn’t fucking end in 2009, and we’re going to intercept the creation of Vine. We’re going to need big bucks to do this, but I’m sure we’ll manage.”

“What if we don’t get these _‘big bucks’_ , though?” Karkat asked, hesitancy in his voice. He felt like he knew the answer, but his morbid curiosity dictated that he ask anyway. Despite what Karkat feared, however, Dave simply shrugged. As he continued, he moved the image around to continue explaining what his scribbles meant in-context.

“Didn’t think about that because we _will_ get the big bucks,” he simply responded. “So. We’re going to get the rights to Vine, and we’re going to get John to take the source code and keep it on his person. I don’t know if we’re bringing a phone or what because I don’t know how retcon shit affects electronics, we’ll decide that when we talk to the man himself. But we’re bringing the code back to Earth-C.” 

“So why is there a diamond above the keyboard? What significance does that have?”

“Don’t get too excited, it’s nothing to do with quadrants.”

“No, I fucking knew that. But what does it fucking mean.”

“It’s part of a coding language. John is getting the code. God, keep up, I feel like I’m running a marathon and dragging you in a little red wagon behind me.”

“Excuse me for not being fluent in Striderisms.”

Dave zoomed out on the diagram to give the full view of the now-explained plan. “Once the code’s back, we’re going to just make the app and advertize the _shit_ out of it. And that’s how we’re getting Vine to Earth-C.”

Karkat squinted at the diagram, hating the fact that the scribbles and their meanings were now relatively clear in his mind. He was actually kind of sorry he asked. “So… why are Dirk an Jake’s glasses in the corner there?”

“We’ll have all the money, and they’ll be irrelevant. We’re going to be so much more than they are, and we won’t even have to exploit our literal asses to do it.”

Dave locked his phone and set it on the nightstand next to him, letting himself fully sink into the warmth given to him by the blanket and by his boyfriend alike. Karkat instinctively snuggled into Dave’s side even more, making the both of them that much more comfy. “Whatever you say.”

The blond went to open his mouth to respond, but a yawn took over instead. Rather than continue harping on about his plan, his brain decided it was time for him to conk the fuck out. The two shared comfortable silence in the following moments, their closeness being the closest thing to an _‘I love you’_ shared between them as they both fell asleep in eachothers company. Their breathing became soft, shallow, and rhythmic, proceeding to blend in with the pouring rain that still was beating down on the roof.

This time, neither were awake to argue over if they actually blended well or not.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey just so yall know, this chapter and future chapters will be making use of the Homestuck AO3 skin, so if you dont have skins enabled, be sure to hit that spicy "show creator's style" button up top!

TG: hey egbert, you up

It was five in the morning. Karkat was still fast asleep, tangled in a sea of bedsheets and pillows. Where Dave had been for most of the night was replaced with an exceptionally soft pillow, still allowing the troll to have that warmth without the need for a living body to offer it. Rather than remain curled up with his trollian lover, Dave found himself perched in the living room once more. This time, rather than on the sofa, he was at the desk in the furthest corner of the room, using the house’s communal laptop.

It had honestly been a long time since Dave spoke to John. When Earth-C was created, he and his fellow Gods wanted to keep aspects of their planets from the Game. John didn’t ever really leave the biome he’d created for himself. No one heard from him, really.

Was John okay?

He was online on Pesterchum, so he wasn’t dead. Or maybe he was. Maybe he died moments before Dave awoke from his slumber, killed by an angry salamander who was a little bit too devout to his athiestic beliefs despite living next door to an actual God. It’d really be taking _God is dead and we killed Him_ to a new level, wouldn’t it?

Nah. John couldn’t die. Not like that, anyway. Being killed by an ideologically-fueled salamander wasn’t heroic or just. Not in the grand scheme of things, anyway.

TG: youre online

TG: i know youre there

TG: unless an angry fuckin salamander killed you

TG: which would be fuckin great

TG: not because youre dead but because you love those shits to death

TG: killed by your own people

TG: like jfk

TG: but god jfk

He peered over the rest of his contacts on Pesterchum, drumming his fingers idly against the keyboard - hard enough to make an asmr-like tapping noise but light enough to avoid any unwarranted keysmashing nonsense being registered by the computer. He had to talk to Rose to get more information about the timelines where Vine was a thing, but she didn’t ever check Pesterchum. Kanaya did, but she rarely answered. She’d get your message, come online, and go offline a minute later.

Ghost reading among Gods was a real problem, and no one could approach it because the invitation to the intervention would get ghosted as well.

To be fair, Dave had implied bringing the shitty chat program to Earth-C was a good idea. Others wanted to just make a whole new chat interface but _no!_ Dave wanted Pesterchum. 

Dave had a bad track record of wanting to import defunct social platforms from their original existence, didn’t he? But… at least he’d experienced Pesterchum. He had no idea what Vine was besides anecdotal stories he heard from Rose and a few vague memories of alternate Daves talking about it as the game progressed.

A noise from Pesterchum snapped Dave out of the trance he was entering.

EB: oh hey dave.

EB: no i was not killed by salamanders. they are a people of peace.

TG: thats a relief

TG: i wouldnt want to know how the universe justified that death

TG: the cosmic forces would be like

TG: oh shit

TG: john didnt pay a 15% tip that one time at dennys

TG: lets snipe him

EB: as if i’d go to dennys anymore.

Small talk was never Dave’s forte, but he didn’t want to contact an old friend and immediately hop into his pitch for an interdimensional adventure to claim an app no one on the goddamn planet had ever even remotely interacted with.

So he just kept shooting the breeze.

TG: i mean they dont have the best breakfast but its still okay

TG: you tellin me you wouldnt go to dennys with me

TG: your old pal

TG: your broseph

TG: your macabroni and cheese

EB: first, please never say macabroni ever again. it reminds me too much of dirks weird obsession with ponies.

EB: second, no i refuse to step into a dennys. especially after last time.

TG: it aint my fault the waitress saw jake was there and fainted 

TG: and landed directly in front of you

TG: and got a concussion

TG: thats not my fault

TG: if anything it gives us fuel to file a lawsuit against jake

EB: what lawyer do you know that could take down jake. he has dirks massive ego at his beck and call. he could demolish even the best lawyer our original earth had to offer with a literal blink!

TG: thats the strider gaze for you

TG: were devilishly handsome bastards even at the most inconvenient times

TG: but yeah youre right

TG: lawyers wouldnt work

TG: thats why we need to think outside the box

EB: dave.

TG: like way outside the box

TG: maybe even outside our own planet

EB: dave.

TG: way beyond our planet

TG: earth-c doesnt stand a fuckin chance against what we have in store for jake

EB: dave. 

TG: im monologuing and youre ruining my flow

EB: is this why you messaged me?

Dave hesitated. Okay, maybe he was coming on a bit too strong about this idea. Maybe he should’ve waited to bring it up. Maybe he should have invited John on a serious outing that wasn’t to Dennys. 

He sure had backed himself into a corner, hadn’t he? He had to get the conversation going his way again.

TG: nah im just fuckin around

It was the best he could do to turn the conversation around before it crashed into a wall.

EB: okay…

EB: so why did you message me anyway? we havent talked in months.

TG: you just answered your own question my good man

TG: maybe asking you to go to dennys was a bad idea

TG: but bro i miss you

TG: you wanna come over and watch some shitty movies with me

EB: and karkat?

TG: i mean he kind of lives here

EB: ill pass.

TG: bro come on

TG: i have all your favorites

EB: no you don't. 

TG: okay youre right

TG: but god i wish we had the talent to recreate them

TG: look i dont have any of the movies any of us like but we could still chill and watch some shitty movies

TG: have a few beers maybe

TG: or other alcoholic beverages

EB: and third wheel while you and karkat have drunk makeouts next to me?

TG: bro i may like dick but im not a dick

EB: i dont wanna hear about your sexual interests dave!

TG: youre the one that brought them up

TG: but if youre really worried about third wheeling i can just come over there

TG: i dont know where the fuck you live but im sure i can manage

EB: im not letting you into my house.

TG: aw why

TG: scared im gonna find your anime waifu bodypillow again

EB: no! first of all i dont have her anymore. second of all, my house isnt ready for company!

TG: dennys is always an option

EB: dave im not going to dennys!

Dave leaned back in his chair and turned his gaze to the ceiling, letting out an irritated groan. Was John always this disagreeable? He was sure he wasn’t. He spent a lot of time alone, though… maybe he was still going through that post-game depression most of them had experienced? 

Well. Only one way to find out.

Dave returned to his original sitting position, glancing at the screen for a moment before continuing his conversation.

TG: dude are you okay

Four simple words. That’s all they were. And it was up to John how to answer. Dave knew deep down that this question was pointless, knowing that he himself would lie through his teeth. It was so easy to do that, too. Typing carries no tone, no indication of true feelings, no body language to prove that you’re lying. It’s how he was able to get away with a lot of shit as a snarky teenager. It’s how he was able to avoid the true facts about his upbringing when talking to his friends.

John wasn’t answering.

TG: no pressure or anything but like

TG: you havent really talked to any of us in months

Dave wasn’t a particularly anxious man. Sure, he had a pretty major case of PTSD - who didn’t? Everyone who survived the game had long grocery lists of traumatic events they either experienced first hand or at least witnessed. It took a lot of purposeful repressing and major distraction to learn how to cope with some of the shit they’d seen, but some appeared to do better than others.

Again, Dave was no stranger to repressing. He’d done it his whole life. But he’d never known John to bottle shit up, at least not like this. Not in the ten years they’d been acquainted had he seen the man become such a hermit that people might even forget he was a major force in the creation of the universe they all existed in presently

John wasn't okay.

EB: im fine.

TG: no youre not

EB: yes i am!

TG: do i look like an idiot

EB: i cant see you, dave! we’re talking online.

TG: well played egbert

TG: but im being serious

TG: completely dead serious

Dave glanced at the clock on his task bar, sighing. It was already five til six? He’d zoned out hard on the conversation so far. 

EB: i mean why wouldn’t i be fine? everything is just a-okay!

EB: it’s not like we’re all here just to watch these creatures exist, you know? it’s not like we lost everyone we love back in our own universe or anything. why would i be anything other than fine?

EB: ...

EB: dave?

Rain was still falling, but despite this, Dave stepped away from the computer and walked toward the door. There was a clipboard hung up next to it, filled with hastily written notes from both himself and Karkat. This was how they’d let each other know they were heading out on short notice, and this was no exception. As Dave pulled on his hoodie, he reached for the red pen hanging on a piece of yarn from the clipboard. As he slid on his sneakers, he scribbled down a note toward the bottom of the page.

_“be back later. got a friendship to rekindle.”_

And with that, he was out the door in an instant, on his way to the LOWAS region of Earth-C to hunt down an old friend.


End file.
